Kids under the age of 13 make up about 20% of Ballarat’s population and in 2021 there are more than 20,000 of you, and that’s growing every year!

Children's Week is celebrated around Australia in October and the theme for 2021 was Children have the right to choose their own friends and safely connect with others.

We asked you to tell us:

How do you connect with friends?

What makes a good life?

What does it mean to be healthy?

Your ideas are being used to help Council make sure they’re making the right decisions. We also interviewed kids and are making a short video - this will be released on Universal Children's Day on November 20th, on the City of Ballarat Facebook page, so keep an eye out! We’ll also release a short summary of our findings later in November.

In 2022 we will be launching a Brains Trust and we will be looking for children aged between the ages of 6-13 years old to nominate to continue to share their knowledge and thoughts with us, to help influence decisions that will directly impact them. Keep an eye out for more information early next year!

Consulting with kids

Did you know that Ballarat is a Child Friendly City? This means that we think it is really important to listen to kids and make sure that kids are involved in decision making. We signed an agreement called a charter and you can find the charter in the links on this page.

We heard from about 150 kids during our Children's Consultation and we were so impressed with the responses! We have spoken with other teams at Council and let them know what kids were telling us too. You can find out more about what kids told us in the Important Links section on this page.